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Monday, March 12, 2012

Book Review and Giveaway: Kicking Ashe by Pauline Baird Jones

If you followed my reviews from last week you know that I love this series.
I had to sort of re-read the books to do a fair job on the reviews. (A good reason NOT to wait a year to write a review!) Fortunately, re-reading them was a pleasure and reminded me why I liked them so much with the first read. I reviewed the short story Steam Time last summer.
Now I am glad, but sad, to come to the final “chapter”, so to speak.

With hearts and lives on the line, a kiss may be all they have time for...

Time has dumped Ashe on a dying planet and she needs to figure out why before she ceases to exist. Or gets vivisected by some Keltinarian scientists. Or worse.

Vidor Shan might help—since someone somewhere is trying to hose him, too—if she can convince him to trust her. Probably shouldn’t have told him that only someone he trusts can betray him. Also wouldn’t mind if he kissed her on the mouth.

Vid would love to kiss the girl, but his brother is lost, he’s got hostile aliens on his tail, and the stench of betrayal all around him. Can he trust the woman who told him to trust no one?

Then a time quake hurls them to a nasty somewhere and some when...

Review: “Expect the Unexpected.”

The author introduced Ashe and her sentient, internal, ‘side-kick’, nanite, Lurch, in Steamrolled. Ashe is clearly a ‘kicking’ Time Space cadet who usually manages to handle trouble with some help from Lurch. At the end of Steamrolled she is tumbling from a tsunami like time wave as time, which “is persistent”, tries to right itself from the improper time interference and alternate time realities. She finds the unexpected as she returns to consciousness: she is still alive and she looks up into the familiar face of Vidor Shan.

Vidor has shown up as a slightly different version of his barbarian, roguish self, depending on the time-space continuum when he appears. Ashe briefly met Vidor before getting thrown through time (Steamrolled) and knows that he had some connection to her not-so-great grandma, Doc (Girl Gone Nova). Each version has his own sexy allure and arrogance. There is something wrong about him and his timeline that has drawn Ashe in order to get it fixed once and for all and hopefully give her a chance to get home to the Time Base.

Vidor’s society is a strange mix of archaic living style and extraordinary ships and weapon technology. Someone has betrayed Vidor and has tried to destroy him in several time scenarios. It has to be someone very close to him that knows him really well. Ashe is inclined to think it is his missing brother, Timrick, whose scent has appeared with an attacking troop of Zelk, a human like creature with reptilian skin.

Ashe and Vidor stumble through shifting time waves trying to solve the puzzle while fighting off Zelk attacks and giant cockroaches that eat anything in their path, including the hull of their craft. Although Vidor doesn’t want to trust her, he begins to realize that she may be his only chance to survive to a life he can enjoy.

Although the evil overlord was exposed and hopefully quashed in Steamrolled, I am glad that there is this story for Ashe and Vidor to wrap up the series. This story seems more about the girl getting the guy, but there is still plenty of action and storyline to move it along quickly. The giant cockroaches are a stretch but sometimes our small fears become huge problems so it fits in this topsy turvy timeline.

I love that the heroines in these books are strong, scientific, skilled and smart women who have been too busy with their careers or lives to have had much social involvement with the opposite sex. Each of them gets to have a first kiss with their sexy heroes and then a HEA.

I also enjoy the use of what I think of as “cliches in cheek.” They may be cliche phrases but they are clearly used with a tongue in cheek sense of humor. This book provides fun with Ashe’s family line of wonderful strong mantras, many passed on from Doc, like: The impossible just takes longer; What doesn’t kill us makes us strong; Trouble is an opportunity to excel. And I agree with Ashe that there should be one about not getting eaten by bugs.

This is a series of stories that I can see myself revisiting again in the future when I want something fast paced and fun with strong heroines and hunky heros, even if some of them are completely alien!

Ashe’s reaction to getting up close to Vidor:

...too close to escape the slam of power he radiated like a solar event. Caught between wanting to move in and move away, Ashe froze–though cold was not the direction her internal temperature was trending. Location 94.

Vidor learns that Ashe is intergalactic in her travels:

“I...” she paused again, “trail trouble.” He would have said she was trouble. Location 925.

I will add this to my ARC challenge list.TO ENTER THIS GIVEAWAY for the Winner's Choice of Print or eBook (International would get eBook):

1. I sent you to visit the author's website for the giveaway of THE KEY. Today please comment on this review. This is required for entry.. For bonus comment on the other reviews in the series that don't have a direct giveaway; one entry for each review (up to three available here and at Girl Gone Nova and/or Tangled in Time.

It must be so satisfying to Pauline to have completed the series, six books is a lot of work. I haven't previously gotten into this series but winning a copy of this one might just get me started.My answer to question #11 is: Well-rounded, believable characters and a story that takes me somewhere I've never been before.I am a follower of this blog by email: carlscott(at)prodigy(dot)net(dot)mxI also Tweeted about the giveaway: https://twitter.com/#!/carlrscott/status/179571364284473344Thanks!